on decidedly upon Franklin's side, though I certainly see force in
the contrary view. Yet before one feels fully satisfied he would wish to
know from whom these letters came to Franklin's hands, the information
then given him concerning them, and the authority which the giver might
be supposed to have over them; in a word, all the attendant and
qualifying circumstances and conversation upon which presumptions might
have been properly founded by Franklin. Upon these essential matters
there is absolutely no evidence. Franklin was bound to secrecy
concerning them, at whatever cost to himself. But it is evident that
Franklin never for an instant entertained the slightest doubt of the
entire propriety of his action, and even in his own cause he was wont to
be a fair-minded judge. One gets a glimpse of the other side in the
_Diary and Letters of his Excellency Thomas Hutchinson_, _Esq._, etc.,
by Thomas Orlando Hutchinson, pp. 5, 82-93, 192, 356.]

Franklin had anticipated that the "king would have considered this
petition, as he had done the preceding one, in his cabinet, and have
given an answer without a hearing." But on the afternoon of Saturday,
January 8, 1774, he was surprised to receive notice of a hearing upon
the petition before the Lords of the Committee for Plantation Affairs,
at the Cockpit, on the Tuesday following, at noon. Late in the afternoon
of Monday he got notice that Mr. Mauduit, agent for Hutchinson and
Oliver, would be represented at the hearing on the following morning by
counsel. A less sagacious man than Franklin would have scented trouble
in the air. He tried to find Arthur Lee; but Lee was in Bath. He then
sought advice from Mr. Bollan, a barrister, agent for the Council of
Massachusetts Bay, and who also had been summoned. There was no time to
instruct counsel, and Mr. Bollan advised to employ none; he had found
"lawyers of little service in colony cases." "Those who are eminent and
hope to rise in their profession are unwilling to offend the court,
whose disposition on this occasion was well known." The next day at the
hearing Mr. Bollan endeavored to speak; but, though he had been
summoned, he was summarily silenced, on the ground that the colonial
Council, whose agent he was, was not a party to the petition. Franklin
then laid the petition and authenticated copies of the letters before
the committee. Some objections to the receipt of copies instead of
originals were raised by Mr. Wedderburn, so